Written by Barry Fields
Rose supports her mother, feeble at ninety, with a hand around her waist as the old woman shuffles along the walkway, then helps her into the back seat. Daisy, her older sister, hasn’t seen their mother in several years. From the passenger seat, she waves hello while chatting on the phone. Pulling away from the nursing home onto the street, Rose slams on the brakes when her mother screams.
“What’s wrong?”
“I said Heinz.”
“They were out, so I got Campbell’s. You like Campbell’s.”
“I wanted Heinz.” A can of tomato juice strikes the windshield and rolls off the dashboard. “You’ve never done what I want. Never.”
Daisy, off the phone, turns toward their mother. “Don’t be upset. She meant well.”
“Your sister hates me.”
Facing forward, Daisy admonishes, “You could have tried somewhere else.”
Rose bites her lower lip until it hurts. She should be the one doing the reprimanding, but as always she stuffs the impulse. She handled their parents’ needs every day for years, moved them to a new facility every time her mother’s vicious mouth got them kicked out, while her sister meditated with her guru in Hawaii.
“Take me to see Harold,” their mother commands.
Rose drives to the cemetery. Their mother kneels at her husband’s grave, her children at her side.
“Why did you have to go first? You knew I would have to follow you. You didn’t care.” No tears accompany the angry outpouring. Rose prevents her from pulling out her already sparse hair and guides her back to the car. Daisy takes the front seat again.
At the cemetery exit, Rose hesitates. “It’s not too late, Mom. I can still take you back.”
“I hate those people.”
Her mother means the nursing home staff, who dealt patiently with her nastiness. For months she has begged Rose to let her die, which the facility couldn’t allow. With her sister in town and her husband away visiting their daughter, it’s time to grant her mother’s wish. Mesquite, cholla cactus, and pinyon pine dot the property around her home. Once inside, Rose helps her mother under the covers in the master bedroom. Lisinopril, Metaprolol, Diovan, and Aldactone
—her congestive heart failure cocktail—get put away. Without them, her decline will begin quickly. Rose places bottles of oxycodone and diazepam on the nightstand. Daisy leaves
the room to make a call.
“What do you need, Mom?”
“Tomato juice. Make sure it’s Heinz this time.”
Rose runs the errand, her sister on the phone when she returns. Even in sleep her mother manages a look of bitterness.
“I’m glad you’re here for this,” Rose says, not sure if she means it. Daisy had plans to visit a friend in the city and wouldn’t have been inconvenienced otherwise.
“You should come with me to Hawaii. It would do wonders for you.” She triumphantly relates the spiritual teachings: the self doesn’t exist, our true nature cannot be created or destroyed, we are nothing and we are everything.
Rose prepares lunch, Daisy observing without offering to help. Rose asks about the guru’s community. Daisy makes no inquiry about Rose’s life, her recent surgery, her husband. Nothing. After eating, Daisy boots up her computer, oblivious to Rose cleaning up.
So much for spiritual awakening. A judgment Rose keeps to herself.
“Come here!”
Rose rushes to the bedroom at her mother’s summons, holds a tissue for her. She coughs up pink phlegm, demands water instead of tomato juice. On a trip to the bathroom, Rose notes the swelling of belly, legs, and feet. It’s happening.
Daisy joins them in the bedroom. Their mother says, “I’m frightened.”
Daisy instructs, “Death is nothing to be afraid of. There’s nothing to hold onto. What you are is timeless.”
Looking bewildered, their mother repeats, “I’m frightened.”
Rose dabs her mother’s face with a damp cloth. “You’ll be with Dad soon. Think about that.”
Her husband’s name comes in a whisper. “Harold.”
Over the next several hours, their mother increasingly struggles to breathe. Daisy attaches a speaker to her phone for a wild, freeform dance to African drum music. Rose feeds liberal quantities of the soporifics to her mother while holding a glass of water to her lips.
Her sister’s gyrations look ridiculous. “Do you have to do that?”
Daisy continues. “I’m celebrating life.”
Night. Lights lend false brightness to the house. Their mother wheezes, her chest heaving. When she coughs, the tissue turns bright red.
Exhaustion overtaking Rose, Daisy relieves her. Rose is sobbing to herself in the living room, where her mother’s hoarse voice reaches her.
“I left everything to you. Everything.”
And her sister: “Like we decided.”
The betrayal, planned by both of them, knifes Rose through the heart. Her mother’s duplicity follows childhood whippings and adult browbeating. Rose’s need for their love has been an ache too great to allow for standing up to either of them. But now a knot of
determination hardens inside, a physical sensation, engendered by the recognition of her exclusion from their affection.
Back in the room, Daisy snakes and twirls to New Age music. “Remember how they used to call us The Flower Sisters?”
Rose rejects the overture of connection. “All you’ve ever done is take. I’m sick of it.”
“You have your needs. I have mine.”
“Is that your excuse for wrangling all her money from her?”
“She feels safe with me. It’s what she wanted.”
“Get real. And it’s what you wanted.”
Their mother gasps and Rose turns her attention to her. Barely breathing, lungs invisibly filling, she fights to remain conscious. “It’s okay, Mom. It’s time to let go.” She takes her hand and adds, “For me, too. It’s time.”
Her mother closes her fierce eyes. Rose murmurs reassurances over and over, time passing slowly, until the gasping ceases and her mother’s hand goes limp. Rose tosses the untouched cans of juice in the garbage. Her sister is still dancing.
.
Barry Fields is a retired psychologist who lives with his wife and dog in the mountains of North Carolina. His recent short stories have been included in Sundial: A Magazine of Literary Historical Fiction, Unlikely Stories, Ginosko Literary Journal, The Pennsylvania Literary Journal, After Dinner Conversation, Storm Dragon Publishing, Tulip Tree Review, The Opiate, and others. “The Miracle Earth of Chimayó” was the runner-up of the 2025 James Hurst Short Fiction Prize sponsored by North Carolina State University. Numerous nonfiction articles of his have appeared in a variety of publications.